If this is your first visit, be sure to
check out the FAQ by clicking the
link above. You may have to register
before you can post: click the register link above to proceed. To start viewing messages,
select the forum that you want to visit from the selection below.

Sleeping phases

My daughter goes through phases when sleeping for a few weeks she'll sleep through the night then other weeks she wakes up screaming during the night and will not go back to sleep. She is 13 months old. What could be the cause of this?

My children would regularly wake up throughout the night at 13 months of age because they were hungry. We co-slept which made it easy to just roll over and offer the breast so that we could both go back to sleep.

A few things I'm wondering about are...

Is she getting a good feed (i.e. breast or bottle or cup) before going to sleep?

Did the waking up screaming start at the time a vaccination was given?

Did anything change just before this started happening (i.e. something scared her, she started being left with another caregiver, mum or dad was away, etc.)

Is she getting too much sleep during the day?

Is she getting enough exercise/activity during the day so she sleeps better at night?

Well once again last night was a session of not sleeping. She gets a 250ml bottle of Full cream cows milk before she goes to bed. And this started when she got her measles vaccination at 9 months old, I think she had a slight allergic reaction to the vaccination. She also tends to have 2 naps during the day otherwise she becomes a very unhappy little girl. Nothing changed that I can think of I'm with her all the time. She also walks around the house during the day so i think she gets enough exercise and I do stretches with her every time I change her nappy.

Well once again last night was a session of not sleeping. She gets a 250ml bottle of Full cream cows milk before she goes to bed. And this started when she got her measles vaccination at 9 months old, I think she had a slight allergic reaction to the vaccination. She also tends to have 2 naps during the day otherwise she becomes a very unhappy little girl. Nothing changed that I can think of I'm with her all the time. She also walks around the house during the day so i think she gets enough exercise and I do stretches with her every time I change her nappy.

At 12 months a child should be getting about 11 1/4 hours of sleep at night, and 2 1/2 hours of sleep during the day (divided into 2 naps).

At 18 months the child usually transitions to taking only one - 2 1/4 hour nap (nearly the same amount of sleep total per day).

If you're daughter isn't sleeping for more than about 2 1/2 hours during the day total, then she should be able to sleep a full stretch at night.

But if she is sleeping more than 2 1/2 hours during the day (i.e. she takes two 2 hour naps) she may be getting too much sleep during the day making it hard for her to stay asleep at night.

But if she's been waking up at night since she got her measles vaccine, I'd suspect that to be the cause. Be very careful about giving her any more vaccines if she has shown any reaction to them, especially because the link to vaccine induced autism continues to rise.

Have you tried having her sleep in bed with you at night? It might be an interesting little experiment to try, just to see if she is able to sleep through the night better. This is part of what many call "Attachment Parenting" and is very good for Mother, Father and Baby.